The Famous Five

What really annoyed Timmy was not so much their insufferable superiority and snobbishness but that they smelt really awful. He believed their monstrous gluttony was the reason for this.

On the third day of their holiday, Julian revealed he had an important personal announcement to make, and George surprised everyone by deciding to go skinny dipping.

This was the morning that Dick finally faced up to his pipe-smoking obsession and Anne discovered a well-thumbed edition of 'Health & Efficiency' in Aunt Fanny's needlework box.

Anne had unexpectedly grown up and married Peter, once the most insufferable boy in the Secret Seven and now an insufferable mature adult working in the insurance industry. Now Anne had four unruly children and a dependence on valium and gin. How she longed for the days when she was the only really normal one in the Famous Five. She never saw any of them any more, not since the big family row and Uncle Quentin's arrest and imprisonment.

Fanny was surprised to discover that Quentin now had an attractive young secretary to assist him with the tests on the secret prototype missile guidance system. He said that she was particularly competent at filing, with an unerring eye for putting things in the right places.

The Secret Service knew that Uncle Quentin's secretary was connected to an agency in Great James Street. Moving quickly, they detained Quentin at Dover with his suitcase containing the prototype guidance system. Meanwhile, Special Branch arrested a woman thought to be Quentin's secretary but she turned out to be a Surbiton housewife on a shopping spree in Bloomsbury. The real go-between was never found.

Betrayed by Quentin and spurned by people at the Tennis Club, Fanny's grip on reality and descent into unpredictable rages worried the Five, especially when she blamed their incessant and stupid adventuring for her humiliation. Julian took charge and arranged for a Sanitorium somewhere up north to look after her for a few weeks. When Dick and Anne asked Julian for the address of the asylum he was unable to recall it. George gave Timmy one of Fanny's old slippers to smell for a scent, but he recoiled in disgust and went AWOL for several days. It later turned out that he had gone to Lyme Regis, which was a resort well-known to the canine community for being kind and welcoming to dogs. To be continued.

At the trial of George Kirrin who, despite his youth, had been charged with Treason, Counsel for the Prosecution demonstrated the system of codes and ciphers that Quentin Kirrin had used to communicate with the Communists and proved that George had been implicated in the plot.

What with all the drama and the complete implosion of the Kirrins, Timmy had almost forgotten how sexually licentious the adults had been behind the children's backs. It was a bad example to set, even for a dog, and worryingly Timmy had also detected a sinister side to Julian's character. Timmy decided to stay a bit longer in Lyme Regis before making any firm plans for the future. He was missing George very badly. Perhaps he would make his way to the Borstal on the Isle of Portland.